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Tewksbury's Motel Caswell wins forfeiture case

By Katie Lannan, klannan@lowellsun.com

Updated:
01/25/2013 12:31:04 PM EST

TEWKSBURY -- The government's attempt to seize the Motel Caswell under federal drug-forfeiture laws was dismissed Thursday by a federal judge who found police made no effort to work with or warn the property's owner.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Judith Dein found that the property was not subject to forfeiture and that Russ Caswell, proprietor of the budget motel on Route 38, met all the qualifications of an "innocent owner" who did not know of or consent to drug crimes taking place on his property.

"It's unbelievable to get this behind us," Caswell, 69, said of the legal proceedings first initiated in 2009. "It just throws everybody into turmoil, threatening to lose everything you worked your whole life for."

Citing 15 incidents that took place from 1994 to 2008, prosecutors argued that the Motel Caswell facilitated drug trafficking and that motel staff did not take sufficient action to prevent drug crimes from occurring.

No statistical information about the level or type of crime at the motel was presented, Dein wrote. She noted that during that 14-year period, Caswell rented around 196,000 rooms, and crimes were committed by different transient guests.

According to testimony, police did identify the motel as a "high-crime area," along with two more Main Street properties, the Stadium Plaza parking lot and the Motel 6.

A recent Sun review of Tewksbury Police Department arrest logs from 2007 to 2012 showed that during those years, three other Main Street addresses saw more drug arrests than the Motel Caswell.

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While 19 drug arrests were made at the Motel Caswell, 26 each were made at 85 Main St., an address shared by Home Depot, Applebee's and Burger King, and 95 Main St, where the Motel 6 and IHOP are located. Twenty-four drug arrests were made at Walmart.

In her ruling, Dein calls it "rather remarkable" for the government to contend that Caswell should lose his property "for failure to undertake some undefined steps in an effort to prevent crime," if police did not reach out to him about a crime problem.

Testimony in the weeklong November trial showed that motel staff had taken several security measures, including installing security cameras and warning signs, requiring guests to fill out registration cards and manning the front desk 24 hours a day. Caswell also reported suspicious behavior to police, provided officers with room keys when requested and gave police free rooms for stakeouts.

Police Chief Timothy Sheehan testified that no one warned Caswell his property could become subject to forfeiture or expressed he should do more to discourage drug activity.

Sheehan did not respond to requests for comment made via email and a message left on his cellphone Thursday evening.

"Having failed to notify Mr. Caswell that he had a significant problem, and having failed to take any steps to advise him on what to do, the government's resolution of the crime problem should not be to simply take his property," the judge's opinion reads.

The Institute for Justice, the libertarian, public-interest law firm that represented Caswell, maintains that seeking to take the motel was an abuse of power.

"What the government did amounted to little more than a grab for what they saw as quick cash under the guise of civil forfeiture," Institute for Justice Senior Attorney Larry Salzman said in a statement.

If prosecutors had won their case, the property seized from Caswell would have been sold, with proceeds going to both the federal government and to the Tewksbury Police Department.

Opened by Caswell's father in 1955, the family-owned motel at 450 Main St. is assessed by the town at $1,595,900.

"They just shouldn't have this kind of power," Caswell said Thursday night. "It's just un-American. It feels like something you'd expect under a dictator."

In successful cases under federal forfeiture law, Dein wrote, a "substantial connection" was established between the property and the crime. But with no large-scale drug operations and primarily isolated incidents involving individual drug users, that was not the case at the Motel Caswell.

To meet the standard for forfeiture, the government must show a property was intended to be used in drug crime punishable by a year's imprisonment.

Of the 15 incidents prosecutors brought up, Dein determined that four "clearly did not" involve crimes meeting this standard, and it was "unclear" if another four did, leaving seven eligible instances.

Further, Dein found that drug activity at the motel was not "blatant and pervasive" enough for Caswell to have had knowledge of it. When crimes took place in rented rooms, they could be easily concealed from the owner and staff, who were not always informed of the reason for an arrest.

Caswell said that, in attempting to seize his motel, the government was "chasing rainbows."

"It's overreach, going after innocent people instead of real drug people," he said. "I haven't really understood this thing from day one."

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